By Becky Harvey
Patriot correspondent
OXFORD - After opening with a moment of silence to remember three men who served the town of Oxford for many years - James Dwyer, Jon Larson and Alphonse Vigeant - selectmen chairman, John Saad opened the selectmen’s meeting on March 26, which began with a presentation by Town Accountant Donna Foglio. She first showed the town's revenue history since 2004. She demonstrated that the revenues are now coming mostly from the tax levy and less than half coming from state aid. As it always has been, educational costs were the largest expenditures in the town, followed closely by health care costs. One thing that the FY2014 budget will address is previous losses of hours for town employees, including town hall and library employees. The new budget proposal will allow a restoration of some of the previously cut hours. Two of the town’s health insurers, Tufts and Fallon, have not increased their fees and costs for fiscal 2014, benefiting the town’s bottom line. There were a number of capital requests from different departments. adding up to a little over $1.25million. The largest capital request, representing almost a full half of the value of all capital requests, was for $500 thousand for the repair of the town hall’s clock tower. Zeneski noted that leaks from the clock tower have caused massive damage to the memorial marble stones in the entryway of town hall. Public works, Public Safety and the Schools also made request for different capital projects. All told, the town has received requests for capital expenditures in the amount of $5,645,700 for the fiscal year 2014 budget.
